Episode #40 – Kelly Anderson (Sleeping Beauty)

Kelly Anderson is a former professional tennis player from South Africa. She came to the US to attend Georgia Tech in their tennis program before taking up coaching positions, first at USF and then as Head Coach at Stetson. She even has her own Wikipedia entry! A chance meeting with a number of AT thru-hikers intrigued her and planted within her a desire to take on the Appalachian Trail someday.

Deciding that she needed to do it sooner rather than later, she divested herself of many of her possessions and started from Katahdin 2016, heading south to finish at Harpers Ferry in December. This year, she is back on the trail to finish what she started. Her tale of grit and determination is inspiring. The two pictures below are of Kelly on Mt Madison and, bizarrely, Kelly in rather strange loaner clothes on a launderette stop.

There are a bunch of ways to follow Kelly. You can email her, follow her on Facebook or Instagram, and go to her blog as she reaches the conclusion of her journey.

Jessa/Attie and Nick continue to travel north, with the halfway point approaching rapidly. You can also follow Jessa through her blog.

As a bit of a preview for next week’s show, I promised to add Craig McPherson’s video to really whet your appetite for our interview. Once you see this, you’ll get some of the magic that we used to see on a daily basis on the Appalachian Trail

Don’t forget that the price of my two Kindle books will soon be increased from $2.99 each to $3.99 each. Save a couple of bucks if you’d like to get the Christmas price mistakenly left up for over six months!!